Early deficit no problem for Worcester Sharks

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. 
The Sharks are playing biblical hockey, as in the first shall be last.

In its 3-2 victory over the Adirondack Phantoms here on Saturday night, Worcester fell behind early for the 22nd time this season, which amounts to nearly half of its 48 games. Jon Sim scored at 4:47 of the first period for the Phantoms, but the Sharks won anyway.

Worcester has surrendered that first goal in the opening five minutes 14 times and is 6-7-1 in those games, including Saturday night. Overall, they are 9-8-5 when giving up a goal in the game's first 10 minutes.

McCarthy joins 50 club
John McCarthy's goal in the first period was his 50th for the Sharks. McCarthy joined Riley Armstrong, Mike Iggulden, Graham Mink and Brandon Mashinter as the only players in the 50-goal club. Including the IceCats, 16 Worcester players have 50 or more career goals.

Rookie Roulette
Coach Roy Sommer played another round of Rookie Roulette as he took Sebastian Stalberg out of the lineup and replaced him with Yanni Gourde. Stalberg is 1-0-1 in his last 23 games.

Gourde was pointless and is 0-1-1 in his last 21 games. He was placed on a line with Matt Pelech and Curt Gogol, as Jimmy Bonneau did not dress. Sommer kept his top offensive line together in Daniil Tarasov, Bracken Kearns and Jon Matsumoto, and that unit responded with a power-play goal.

Home away from home
This was Worcester's only visit of the regular season here and it was a homecoming, of sorts, for a few players.

Matsumoto spent the 2009-10 season with Adirondack and posted a career-high 30 goals. Goalie Al Stalock made his professional debut here on Oct. 3, 2009, and won, 3-2. Nick Petrecki grew up about a half-hour south of here and — along with Stalock, Mashinter and McCarthy — also made his professional debut in that Oct. 3, 2009 game.

Petrecki also played in the Glens Falls Civic Center as a peewee, skating in youth games between periods when the Adirondack Red Wings made this city their home.

Last stop: Providence
The Sharks' road trip ends at 3 p.m. this afternoon in Providence, where Worcester is 4-0-0 this season. The P-Bruins are quite hot, though, and have won eight of their last nine games.

Worcester and Providence have played eight games in 2012-13 with the visiting team winning seven of them.

Two-goalie teams
Through 48 games, the Sharks are one of nine AHL teams to have used only two goaltenders all season. The only other Atlantic Division team employing just two goalies is Providence. That's an unusual amount of stability at that position and should change as the NHL season grinds on.

Only one Worcester AHL team has, to date, gone through a full season with only two goalies. The 1997-98 IceCats had Brent Johnson and Frederic Cassivi split the duties.

The last AHL team to go through an entire season using just one goaltender was the Buffalo Bisons in 1960-61. Roy Edwards played all 72 games without relief that year.

Hat trick drought
Valentine's Day was the third anniversary of Dan DaSilva's hat trick, the last one any Worcester player has recorded. It came on Feb. 14, 2010 in a 5-2 victory in Manchester. The hat trick was 231 games ago.

Since then, the Sharks haven't even had three goals as a team in more than half of those games — 119, to be exact. Since then, Worcester has had 47 two-goal games, including five each by Benn Ferriero, T.J. Trevelyan and Mashinter.

Since then, opposition skaters have compiled five hat tricks versus the Sharks.

Shark Bites
The Sharks Booster Club got a mention on the PA system between periods. … Veteran Scott Munroe was in net for the Phantoms. He has played against Worcester for four different teams — Adirondack, Philadelphia, Bridgeport and Wilkes-Barre.